This invention relates to insulating structures, and more specifically to insulating structures for application to interior surfaces in a dwelling for covering windows and the like to prevent passage of drafts and heat therethrough.
The use of dead airspace for thermal insulation and for the prevention of passage of drafts is known in the prior art. For example, it is well known to utilize storm windows and sotrm doors to provide such dead airspace adjacent windows and doors of a dwelling. It is similarly known to utilize sheets of plastic at the interior surface of a window, or other opening, to provide such dead airspace in an inexpensive manner.
For example, there is available in the marketplace a structure for application to windows, doors and vents which includes a frame and a 4 mil vinyl sheet. The device provides a channel portion for a frame, the channel portion including an adhesive surface for bonding to a wall, a window or door frame or sash, or the like. The vinyl sheet is retained within the channel member by a plastic retainer strip. Such structures, however, are expensive to manufacture and are difficult to manipulate.
Another device available on the marketplace supplies sheets of 11/4 mil flexible plastic along with framing strips and nails for application to interior or exterior surfaces. This device is similarly difficult to apply and to mount.
Still another prior art frost shield is described in Walz U.S. Pat. No. 2,111,343. The patent describes a shield plate, which is preferably made of glass, and a slitted four-sided strip of compressable elastic material such as sponge rubber, having two of its opposing faces covered with tacky adhesive, for adhering to a windshield at one face and to the glass shield plate at the other. The strip attaches the shield to the window and provides a seal therebetween. While such an arrangement utilizes advantageously a strip having two adhesive sides, it is apparent that the shield plate is bonded to the mounting structure at only a single surface thereof, and may thus become dislodged therefrom.
There is accordingly a need in the prior art to provide a simple, inexpensive, easily manufactured and secured mounting structure for insulating sheets to be applied to windows, doors and other openings or sources of heat exchange between an interior and an exterior of a home, dwelling or other structure.